you come?” sobbed Jane. “Somebody will be sure to hear you, and then you’ll be in worse trouble than ever, besides getting me turned out of my place. Oh, John! – oh, John! how can you be such a cruel fellow!”
“Hold your tongue, will you, and don’t be a fool,” was the husky reply. “I’m going to have you away from here, Jenny, in a few days, and then his proudship shall have some letters as shall make him pay me to hold my tongue, or else have all his pride tumbling about his ears.”
“Oh, you wicked wretch!” muttered Jane to herself, for his words roused her slumbering resentment, and drove her troubles away for the present.
“Can you hear all I say?” whispered the voice from below.
“Yes,” whispered Jane again; “but what do you want? Oh, pray, pray go!”
“Yes,” said Gurdon. “I’ll go when I’ve done; but I want to talk to you first. Who’s at home? Is he here?”
“Who? Master? Yes,” whispered Jane, “and the doctor, and my lady’s pa: they’re all here, for she’s been very bad to-night.”
“But are they all gone to bed?” whispered Gurdon.
“Yes, all but Mrs Elstree, who’s sitting up in my lady’s room.”
“Come down then, softly, into the passage and open the lobby door; you can let me in then, through the billiard-room.”
“That I’m sure I’m not going to!” exclaimed Jane, indignantly, “and you ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking me such a thing. It isn’t like you, John.”
“Hold your tongue, will you!” he exclaimed, gruffly. “Do you want to be heard, and have me shot by one of the keepers, or some one fire at me from one of the windows?”
“N-n-no,” gasped Jane; “but pray do go; pray, dear John, go away!”
“Ah, you’re very anxious to get rid of me now,” said Gurdon, sneeringly, for he could hear that Jane was sobbing; “I may go now, just because I made a slip, and you want to see me no more. It’s the way of the world.”
“No – no; don’t talk like that,” cried Jane, “for you know I don’t deserve it; but pray, for both our sakes, go away at once. Write to me and say what you want.”
“I shan’t do nothing of the kind!” hissed Gurdon, angrily. “You do as I tell you: come down and let me in, or it’ll be the worse for you. I want to talk to you so as I can’t talk here. I’ve got a deal to say about the future.”
“I don’t care, and I won’t!” said Jane, excitedly, for anger roused in her anger in return. At such times she did not at all feel afraid of John Gurdon, nor of his threats, but was ready to meet him with open resistance. “I’m not going to do any such thing, so there now! It’s more than my place is worth, and you know it, John. And besides, it wouldn’t be seemly and modest.”
“Oh, you’ve grown very modest all at once, you have,” sneered Gurdon, angrily. “It’s all make believe; and if you don’t do as I tell you, I’ll pay you out in a way as’ll startle you! Come down this minute,” he hissed, “and do as I tell you! I will speak to you!”
“You won’t do nothing of the kind,” said Jane, angrily; “you’ve been drinking again, or you wouldn’t have come here to ask such a thing, nor you wouldn’t have thrown them nasty, sneering, jeering words at one that no one can say a word against, so there, now. And now, good night, Mr Gurdon,” she said, frigidly; and he heard the sash begin to close.
“Oh, Jane – Jane, darling! please – please stop, only a minute,” he whined, for he knew that he had played a false card, and that it was time to withdraw it. “Don’t be hard on a poor fellow as is fallen, and who’s put out of temper by his troubles. I didn’t think that you’d turn your back upon me – I didn’t, indeed.”
John Gurdon paused, and gave vent to a snuffle, and something that was either a hiccup or a sob. Jane Barker, too, paused in her act of closing the window, for somehow John Gurdon had wound his way so tightly round her soft heart, that she was ready to strike him one moment, and to go down on her knees and beg forgiveness the next.
“It’s very hard,” sobbed Gurdon, in maudlin tones. “Even she has turned upon me now, even to closing the window, and denying me a hearing – I didn’t think it of her. A woman that I’ve worshipped almost – a woman as I’d have died for a dozen times over; but it isn’t in her nature.”
Gurdon stopped and listened attentively.
“She isn’t a bad one at heart,” he continued, in the same whining, lachrymose tones, “but she’s been set against me, and it’s all over now; and I may as well make an end of myself as try and live. I did think as she’d have come down to listen to me; but no, and it’s all over. The whole world now has shut its doors and windows in my face!”
“Oh, John – John, pray, pray don’t talk so!” sobbed Jane.
“What! not gone?” he exclaimed, in mock ecstasy.
“No, no! How could you think I should be so cruel?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he whined. “But pray, pray come down: I want to have a few words about what’s to be done. I don’t want to take a public-house now, Jane, but to go into the grocery and baking; and there’s a chance before me, if I could only point it out.”
“Well, tell me now,” sobbed Jane.
“No; how can I?” said Gurdon – “I shall be heard. Ah! Jenny, you don’t care for me as you used, or you wouldn’t keep me out here like this!”
“Oh, what shall I do?” sobbed Jane. “I can’t do as he asks, and he knows it; and yet he’s trying to break my heart, he is!”
“Now, then, are you going to listen to me, Jenny?” whispered Gurdon, imploringly.
“Oh, I can’t – I can’t: I daren’t do it!” sobbed poor Jane.
“Oh, please, if you love me, don’t drive me to desperation!” cried Gurdon. “I – ”
“Hush!” whispered Jane, in affrighted tones, for at that moment there was a loud knocking at her bedroom door, and the voice of Mrs Elstree was heard.
“Jane – Jane! Quick! Call Sir Murray! My darling is dying!”
Beneath the Shadow
As, muttering a savage oath, John Gurdon crept through the yielding shrubs, Jane Barker softly closed the window, and then glided to the door.
“Not gone to bed?” exclaimed Mrs Elstree. “Thank Heaven! Rouse Sir Murray and my husband while I run back.”
“Have you called Dr Challen, ma’am?” said Jane, in agitated tones.
“Oh yes: he is in the bedroom,” sobbed Mrs Elstree; and she hurried back.
In a few minutes husband and father were by the bedside, watching with agitated countenances the struggle going on, for truly it seemed that the long lethargy into which Lady Gernon had been plunged was to be terminated by the triumph of the dread shade. As Mrs Elstree had sat watching her, she had suddenly started up to talk in a wild,
